Klryz
Pronunciation guide: IPA symbols, stress and word endings

Vowels

iːseeɪsite / ɛbedæcat
ɑːfatherɒhot (UK)ɔːlawʊput
uːtooʌcupɜːbirdəabout
eɪdayaɪmyɔɪboyaʊnow
əʊ / oʊgo (UK / US)ɪəneareəhairʊətour

Consonants that look unusual

θthinðthisʃsheʒmeasure
tʃchurchdʒjudgeŋsingjyes

p b t d k g f v s z h m n l r w sound as in ordinary English spelling.

Marks

  • ˈ main stress, before the stressed syllable: /ˈwɔːtə/ water · ˌ lighter (secondary) stress: /ˌʌndəˈstænd/ understand
  • ː a long vowel · (r) an r said only in accents that pronounce it (most American, Scottish, Irish)

Common word endings

  • -s / -es (plurals; he/she form of verbs): /s/ after voiceless sounds (cats), /z/ after voiced (dogs), /ɪz/ after s, z, sh, ch, j sounds (buses, watches). Spelling: -es after s, x, z, ch, sh; consonant + y → -ies (city → cities).
  • -ed (past): /t/ after voiceless sounds (walked), /d/ after voiced (played), /ɪd/ after t or d (wanted). Spelling: love → loved, stop → stopped, carry → carried.
  • -ing: make → making, run → running, see → seeing.
  • Irregular: go, went, gone · be, was, been · see, saw, seen · man → men · child → children · mouse → mice.
  • Older (King James) forms: -eth = -s (he loveth = he loves) · -est with “thou” (thou lovest) · spake = spoke.

English Dictionary · 107,383 entries · Sources & licences

overdrive

/ˌəʊvə(ɹ)ˈdɹaɪv/ verb, noun

Forms overdrives overdriving overdrove overdriven

  1. verb (transitive) To drive too hard, or far, or beyond strength.
  2. noun (dated, automotive) A gear, on an automobile, higher than the traditional top gear, mainly to allow better fuel economy at highway speeds. In the 21st century, such gears are no longer viewed as "extra" and thus rarely called by this name. “In the 1970s, many transmission designs were revised to add an overdrive gear.”
  3. noun (uncountable, figurative) A state of heightened activity. “overdrive pacing”
  4. noun (euphemistic, slang) Freewheeling (driving a vehicle with the transmission in neutral) on downhill stretches to achieve higher fuel economy and/or speed than otherwise. In colloquial registers, ethnically bigoted variants have been common, such as Jewish overdrive (alluding to the stereotype of miserly Jews) or Mexican overdrive or Polish overdrive (alluding to stereotypes of foolishness and poverty). “Of course overdrive is forbidden for dump trucks in the quarry because it is unsafe, but unscrupulous workers were found to be using it because of a perverse incentive involving tonnage piece rates.”
  5. noun (engineering, mechanical) A gear ratio higher than 1:1: one in which a single revolution of the driving element corresponds to more than one revolution of the driven element.

Synonyms

OD O/D O.D. top gear full throttle see at angel gear overuse

Antonyms

low gear

Etymology

From Middle English overdriven, from Old English oferdrīfan, equivalent to over- + drive. Cognate with Saterland Frisian uurdrieuwe (“to overdo, overstate”), Dutch overdrijven (“to exaggerate”), German Low German overdrieven, överdrieven (“to overdo, exaggerate”), German übertreiben (“to overdo, exaggerate”), Norwegian overdrive (“to exaggerate”).

From over- + drive, originally referring to gear ratios over 1:1.

Webster’s 1913

  1. verb To drive too hard, or far, or beyond strength.

Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “overdrive”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details